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VIA announces VX900 media system processor

by Parm Mann on 23 March 2010, 12:34

Tags: VIA Technologies (TPE:2388)

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VIA Technologies has today unveiled the successor to 2008's VX800 media system processor (MSP) in the form of the new-and-improved VX900.

The chip, pictured above, integrates the features of the Northbridge and Southbridge into a single 31mm x 31mm package and when paired with a VIA Nano 3000-series CPU promises "to bring truly stunning video playback to to the latest HD online video services".

Making smooth playback of 1080p video a possibility is an integrated VIA Chrome9 HC3 graphics processor, clocked at 250MHz and equipped with full DirectX 9 support. Using VIA's ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine, the chip provides hardware acceleration for a range of popular codecs - including H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and WMV - and should deliver "incredibly smooth playback of HD media" without burdening the CPU.

Speaking of CPUs, the VX900 MSP is compatible with a choice of VIA Nano, VIA C7 and VIA Eden processors, and supports DDR3 memory at speeds of up to 1,066MHz.

The chipset as a whole also serves up eight-channel VIA HD audio, an IDE controller, support for two SATA II drives, eight USB ports and Gigabit Ethernet.

Looks as though the Taiwanese manufacturer has a decent alternative to the Intel Atom + Broadcom Crystal HD solution, but will any system integrators take note? If so, expect to see a few netbooks armed with VIA's latest at COMPUTEX in June.


Press release: VIA Takes the Jitters Out of Online HD Video



HEXUS Forums :: 2 Comments

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Interesting for tablet-manufacturers, I'd've thought!

Particularly with a USB client port - it'd let manufacturers have built in storage and implement USB mass storage so you could drag & drop your media files etc. direct to the device…
I like the sound of this. Obviously will need to see some reviews and audio issues will be key but I can see this being a very nice and small HTPC.

Been watching VIA for a while - new M'Server product looks ideal for me as well, low cost, low power server able to run windows server so I can run a proper network at home with proper domain and centralised email and log ins. I know I can do the same with Linux but for home use I do not have time to work through complexities. Couple with NAS in RAID 5 and I should have a very robust storage. That plus a couple of HTPC in key parts of the house will be fantastic